Understanding Negligence Laws is Important to your Injury Claim

Sept. 30, 2011 - PRLog -- To file a personal injury claim after suffering serious injury in an accident your Douglasville personal injury lawyer will need to help you determine who is at fault in your claim. The degree of fault is important when it comes to working with Georgia negligence laws, which can impact the settlement amount of your personal injury claim.

Georgia Negligence Laws Are for Modified Comparative Fault

There are 2 main types of negligence laws: contributory negligence and comparative negligence. Georgia negligence laws follow the comparative negligence rules, which have 3 sub levels of their own. In our state, we follow the modified comparative fault 50% rule.

Your Douglasville personal injury lawyer is a key player in helping you prove fault in your personal injury claim. Determining the degree of fault in an injury case is often left to a jury, who has to make their determination based on the evidence provided by your Douglasville personal injury lawyer and the defendant whom you are accusing was at fault for the accident.

To have a successful personal injury claim with a substantial settlement you must prove that the defendant was 50% or more at fault for the accident. If your own degree of fault is determined to be greater than 49% that automatically excludes you from being able to claim a settlement in your accident case.

Working to Determine Fault under Georgia Negligence Laws

Evidence of your accident and injuries is how fault is determined in a personal injury claim. You need to present enough proof that you were not nearly at as much fault as the other party in causing the accident. Remember that not only your own evidence will be taken into consideration, but also the evidence of the other party.

Some of the evidence your Douglasville personal injury lawyer will help you collect includes:

• photographs of the accident scene;
• medical records of your injuries and treatments;
• witness testimony;
• police reports; and
• expert analysis or testimony.

The more substantial your evidence is in showing that the other party is to blame for causing the accident and contributing to your injuries, the better chance you will have of proving that you had a lower degree of fault.

Why Degree of Fault Matters with Georgia Negligence Laws

The degree of fault in your personal injury claim doesn’t just determine whether or not you have the grounds to file a case against the other party. The higher your degree of fault, the lower your settlement amount will be. The degree of fault is expressed in a percentage format, and the full settlement amount the court finds appropriate for your case will be reduced by that amount.

For example, if you were found to be 20% at fault for a car accident, and the court determines your case is worth $100,000 in damages, your final settlement amount will be reduced by 20% or $20,000.

If you were truly completely innocent in the cause of the accident, your Douglasville personal injury lawyer will help you produce the evidence necessary to persuade the court you deserve the full settlement amount with a 0% fault determination.  Contact us today – 770-577-3020 or vistio our website at http://murphylawyer.com/ and order a copy of our ebook "Mistakes to Avoid if You Are In A Car Wreck" at http://murphylawyer.com/reports/mistakes-to-avoid-if-you-....

# # #

Murphy & Associates, LLC, handles serious Car Accidents, Medical Malpractice, Trucks Accidents, Motorcycle Accidents, Pedestrian & Bicycle Accidents and Worker's Compensation cases.

We are trial lawyers who understand that while proper case preparation often yields a pretrial settlement, some cases need to be tried in court and we are prepared and capable in all instances to do so. We handle cases primarily throughout the West Georgia Metropolitan area, including Douglas, Paulding, Carroll and Haralson Counties. We also regularly handle personal injury cases beyond the local region for example, in Fulton, Cobb or Clayton Counties.